the San Gabriel Mountains, beaches, and trips to St. Malo, near Oceanside, where the Adams family owned a beach house. Karl and Adams also made extended trips to the American and Canadian National Parks, traveling as far north as the Canadian Rockies. By the mid-1970s, they were joined by another fellow Lukits student, Tim Solliday (b. 1952). Together, the three artists traveled and painted en plein air using the pastel medium, as their teacher Theodore Lukits had done in the 1920s and 1930s. Professional career Adams began painting professionally around 1980. He was first represented by the Greg Juarez Gallery in Beverly Hills. Run by the collector, philanthropist, and 9th-generation Californian Gregg Juarez, the Juarez Gallery represented Adams for a number of years. Next, he moved to the Adamson-Duvannes Gallery in West Hollywood, California. Jerome Adamson was an art collector who had purchased this historic gallery. He represented Adams for a number of years and mounted Adams' large exhibitions of works from Asia and Afghanistan. In 1992, Adams began to exhibit his work with the Morseburg Galleries in West Hollywood. There he participated in a long series of group exhibitions which included the older painter Richard Rackus (b. 1922), as well as two of his friends from the Lukits Atelier, Arny Karl (1940–2000) and Tim Solliday (b. 1952). These exhibitions emphasized plein-air landscape painting. Adams participated in a number of pastel shows along with Solliday, Karl, Gil Dellinger, Rich Hilker and Clark Mitchell. In 2003 his wife Elaine Adams opened American Legacy Fine Arts, a private art gallery developed on the first floor of Peter Adams’ studio and began promoting her husband’s work as well as other artists in Los Angeles. Artistic influences Inspired by a broad spectrum of artists in the classical art tradition, however, Adams cites Theodore Lukits, his teacher and mentor, as providing him with the direct link to the art ateliers of Paris and to the 19th century academicians he admires, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) and Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). Like most Plein-Air painters he also cites the Spanish Impressionist Joaquin Sorolla (1863–1923) and the Swedish painter of figures in outdoor settings Anders Zorn (1860–1920) as having an impact on his work. However, in contrast to many painters steeped in the Plein-Air tradition, the course of Adams' life and career has been influenced by the Orientalists, the French, British and American painters who ventured to the